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Now, you will remember that the season finally opened yesterday at 10 a.m. That was only possible after the Sugar Industries Control Board declared the season open. So, if you're thinking that the Mandamus case is now inconsequential, we thought so too, since there is no need to compel an action which has already been taken. Matura-Shepherd says that acting as attorney, she will press the case nevertheless:

Audrey Matura-Shepherd
"We filed the substantive claim before a crop grinding season was declared open, but that does not nullify our application before the court, because if you were in court you will hear that one of the complaint that they had about our application, was that it went beyond a mandamus, where we were seeking certain declarations. So, we've proceeded and we will proceed with the request that we've made for, I think it was 4-5 declarations dealing with the interpretations and function of SICB of having to declare open a grinding season, their role and we are also looking at the legitimate expectation of farmers, that there should have been compliance with the law. So, come February 23rd, there will still be a case."

Daniel Ortiz
"How do you answer the criticism that, since the season has declared open, this is purely academic and could put better use to the court's time."

Audrey Matura-Shepherd
"There will always be criticism, but if there was really better use of the court's time, SICB and the attorney for SICB Mr. Rodwell Williams SC, and the attorney for Belize Sugar Industries Limited, Mr. Micheal Young SC, if they really wanted efficient use of the court's time, they would not have ask for this long period before there could be a hearing. They would have said promptly lets solve it and that would have been not only better use to the court's time, but finality to an issue that clearly is controversial, for which I don't think that they wanted a quick resolution. The grinding season opening was not an appeasement, it was something that had to be done by law."

When the case goes back to court, we'll be there.